


Bravery is Picking Your Battles

by coldfiredragon



Series: Because You Made Me Brave [9]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Bravery timeline, El and Q are sappy sweet disasters, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heart-to-Heart, Ignores Canon, M/M, Margo thinks she knows best, Monster related sensory issues, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Margo Hanson, Psychological Trauma, Quentin Coldwater Lives, Unresolved Emotional Tension, gratuitous amounts of Eliot putting himself first, part of my bravery series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26293174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldfiredragon/pseuds/coldfiredragon
Summary: Leaving Eliot to wallow in his post-Monster, post-Quentin Coldwater existence seems impossible, so when Margo decides its time for her to return to Fillory she's set on taking him with her.  Eliot, however, is a lot more settled than she realizes.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: Because You Made Me Brave [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1336051
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	Bravery is Picking Your Battles

**Author's Note:**

> This entry is probably about 9 months into the timeline, Quentin and Eliot are back together, and are still working out boundaries. It's after 'Limitations' I think, but by only a couple of days at max.

It's the distance that bothers Margo the most. She gets it, she does, the Monster had put Eliot's body through the wringer, and he'd needed time and space to heal. That part of the whole _thing_ she embraces and supports. Margo also understands, empirically, that healing takes time. What she doesn't understand is why fixing himself had to be done in Boston and not say... Fillory. Yes, yeah, she knows that her banishment probably plays a role in that, but she's sure that Fen will fold and hand her back the throne on a silver platter. Is she arrogant to think that? Maybe a little, okay, maybe a lot. It's arrogant, so what? High King hadn't been handed to her the way it had been given to Eliot, she'd earned that shit, and she itches to get her kingdom back. 

She and Josh have talked about returning at length and what that might mean for them as a couple. It will certainly make things more interesting, but Josh is on board as far as she can tell. The pair of them are ready; they have been ready. The only sticking point is that returning to Fillory means leaving Eliot. To Margo's knowledge, Eliot hasn't expressed any interest in going to Fillory, or in moving back to New York, or for doing much of anything that isn't working himself into a coma on the rare occasion he marks out a few hours to sleep. Margo doesn't want to be a bitch. She's talked to him enough to know that his therapy and the routine he's built around it are doing wonders for him. Giving generous consideration to where he'd been after the Monster and the subsequent fallout with Quentin, Eliot's progress is pretty extraordinary. However, she's firmly of the opinion that much of it hasn't been as forward as Eliot likes to pretend. 

That she isn't doing this to be a bitch is the mantra Margo repeats to herself as the elevator quietly hums. She isn't a bitch. She's provided Eliot as much time and space as she can reasonably be expected to give – it's time for both of them to get back to the potentially grand lives that await them. Margo has known since she'd met him that she and Eliot were cut from the same cloth. They are meant for greater things. Eliot is a king by his blood, for crying out loud. He deserves better than a bartending job at some sad-sack hedge bar while he pines like a spinster over a boy that doesn't want him. 

A bell dings, and the doors slide, and Margo stands tall as she steps into the hallway of Eliot's floor. A part of her wishes that she could lay every ounce of blame for Eliot's recent choices on Quentin Coldwater's shoulders alone, but she can't. Life isn't cut and dry like that, and Quentin's main flaw has always been that he's naive enough to keep hoping for something better. It's both admirable and obnoxious. Rarely do you get to have your cake and eat it. Sometimes you have to make hard choices, like the one she's in the process of making. It's time to give Eliot a push. Just a little one, enough to get Eliot thinking about the bigger picture again. Without a friendly shove, Margo's afraid that he'll wallow in his grief forever. She's never been one to wallow, and she's watched Eliot do just that for months. 

If Margo is honest, like truth serum honest, she'll admit that a part of her does miss Quentin. The nerd had worked his way under her skin and stayed there. She misses how easy it had been to let the hidden parts of her personality shine around him. It's a big part of why she finds Josh so attractive. Her Star Trek and Doctor Who references don't go over her boyfriend's head how they might have flown over Eliot's. 

She isn't a bitch. Margo tells that to herself one final time as she raises a hand and knocks. There's no answer, and her shoulders fall. If she's psyched herself for nothing only to find Eliot out, she'll be Royally pissed, emphasizing the capital R. Her keys feel heavy as she raises them, but the lock turns smoothly, and the door pushes open. 

“Eliot?” His apartment is clean, not meticulously so, not unlived in so, but straightened up in ways one does when one expects company or their parents. It screams, ' _hi mom and dad, see, my life isn't a complete trainwreck _.' Eliot hasn't spoken to his parents in at least twelve years.__

__“El?” As she advances into the apartment, Margo hears the telltale pitter-pat of the shower and relaxes her shoulders. Eliot's conditioner's scent rides the wave of warm moist air wafting through the three-inch gap of the partially open bathroom door. As a courtesy, Margo raps the back of knuckles against the wood to get his attention._ _

__“I'm almost done.” She can see the mirror from her vantage point, and the blurred lines of his silhouette reflected in the condensation. His back is to her as he steps under the spray to rinse his hair. “Do me a favor. I put that bottle of Argentinian Malbec in the fridge to chill. Take it out before it gets too cold.” Margo rolls her eyes. The way Eliot is talking, it's like she's supposed to have preconceived knowledge of the specific bottle he has in mind. She grumbles about it under her breath as she retreats to the kitchen to rummage through his fridge. Thankfully, the bottle is obvious because its the only bottle, and he's already opened it to let it start breathing. Once it's in her hand, Margo debates if she needs to fully decant it, or just let it continue to aerate by pouring some of it. The bottle isn't that old, so she doubts the sediment is heavy, which means the tannins are probably still strong._ _

__With a sigh, Margo settles for pouring two glasses. What remains of the bottle gets left on the counter as she carries both to the sofa. The wine has an inky dark color to it, and when Margo swirls her glass under her nose, she thinks she smells plum or something that might taste like plum? She'd need to swish a sip around in her mouth and let the flavor pallet explode across her tongue to be sure. From scent alone, she can tell that her guess about the tannins had been correct._ _

__While the wine breathes on the coffee table in front of her, Margo occupies herself with the TV and Eliot's Netflix account. Across the apartment, the shower taps squeak off, and she hears shuffling as Eliot moves from the bathroom to his bedroom. It only takes him a few minutes to change; Margo can roughly tell where he is without looking by tracking the intermittent slaps of bare feet against the wood floors._ _

__“Margo?” The surprise in his voice makes something tighten in Margo's core. He had been expecting company, and it hadn't been her. As nonchalantly as she can manage, Margo twists at the waist and rests her arm on the couch's back. Her eyes track over him from head to toe. His hair had been spelled dry and hangs in loose product free curls, and the omnipresent glasses that Margo only pretends to like are perched on his nose. The clothes he'd chosen are a genuine cry for help. A black tank top hugs his torso and leads into a pair of gray cotton/polyester sleep pants that say Fillory down one leg. There's a stylized castle Whitespire below the E. They look like something Hot Topic sells. Despite his clear intention not to leave the apartment, the clunky watch is still buckled around his wrist. Margo wants to gag. Eliot's bare feet shift, and his toes curl against the edge of the rug delineating his living room from his dining room, then his arms cross over his chest. His whole posture has gone defensive. “What are you doing here?”_ _

__“I need permission to come over?” Margo challenges. Silent alarms klaxons in her brain, abort, abort. Margo ignores them. Eliot needs to be pushed, or he'll wallow in whatever _that_ outfit represents forever. Margo loves him too much to let it happen. _ _

__“A text would be nice? Maybe a smoke signal, or a bunny? Or at least announce your presence as a courtesy.”_ _

__“I knocked on the bathroom door.”_ _

__“That's not the same as saying 'hey, it's Margo.'”_ _

__“Were you expecting someone else?” She challenges. “It's not like you've had a life since you uprooted from New York.” The klaxon is blaring louder; it's become a near-constant screech. This is not how she wants things to go. She'd invited herself over because she wants him to go home to Fillory with her. Margo can't imagine Fillory without him, even if he can't sit at her side in any official capacity. Surely he must miss it if the pants are any indication, or maybe the pants are just a bit of misplaced nostalgia._ _

__“Maybe I am. It's none of your business.”_ _

__“Cut the crap, El. It's us. Nobody loves you as I do.” She means them in the best way – AKA in the 'you're my platonic soulmate' sense, but the words sound abusive. She's inadvertently weaponized something meant to convey the utmost affection. It requires an immediate course correction. “I miss you is what I mean; I'm worried about you.” His shoulders fall a little, but he doesn't uncross his arms. If she were asked to pick Eliot out of a line-up, she's not sure she'd recognize the man standing a few feet from her. The product free hair, the cheap pajama bottoms, the vulnerable eyes half-hidden behind dark-framed glasses. He's not _her_ Eliot. _ _

__“I'm fine, Margo.”_ _

__“I know you better than anyone. You're not okay” Margo lifts herself off the sofa and gestures around the apartment. “This is all a nice, but it's a front, El. It's nice, but it's boring. It's sad.” Emphatically, she pats one hand against her breastbone. “People like us aren't supposed to settle for this kind of sad-sack, pedestrian, small potatoes bullshit. We've got a kingdom to run. We have to get back to it.”_ _

__“ _You_ have a kingdom to run.” His posture has changed, defensive to irritated. It makes him stand straighter. Margo watches his fingers as the drum against his forearm, then forces her gaze up to hold his eyes._ _

__“I still want you to be there with me! Fillory is our home. I came over here to tell you that I want you to come home with me.”_ _

__“Bambi...” Eliot's fingers stop drumming; his arms haven't dropped yet, but his voice goes softer and regretful. He's going to say no. He's actually going to tell her no and keep hiding behind the curtain. Margo can't stand it._ _

__“I want my best friend back, Eliot!” She knows she's not being fair, because Eliot's right in front of her. He's alive. _Alive_ , when by all odds he shouldn't be. Alive, and breathing, and fucked up, and fragile and still somehow hooked on Coldwater's dick. Margo watches his chest puff out as Eliot draws in a sharp breath. He's breathing – that should be the only thing that matters. How he makes himself happy is none of her business, except that it is, because they committed during their trials that one would never leave the other behind. _ _

__“I'm right here, Margo.”_ _

__“I want my secrets partner back.” She clarifies. Lately, Margo has found herself yearning for the Eliot who would have tackled the world with her at his side. The man who wouldn't have looked back once at the trail of destruction the two of them left in their wake. She wants the quick-witted, acerbic, aloof, incorrigible force that had been Brakebills era Eliot Waugh. She wants the best friend she'd had before a nerdy floppy-haired first year had stumbled into their lives and worked his way between them. Pre-Coldwater era Eliot Waugh, peak diva, physical kid royalty before he'd discovered he was royal for real. Across her from Eliot's face looks constipated._ _

__“I don't...” His throat works, the adams apple bobbing, as he tries to form a response that doesn't break her heart into tinier pieces. “Seriously? That me was an asshole!” It's not an inaccurate observation, and Margo laughs at the honesty of it. It breaks the tension between them enough for Eliot to smile, at least for a second or so. “I don't think I can be that person again, Bambi.” The sincerity of it cuts deep into Margo's layers of emotionless armor. “It... I can't just bottle up everything that happened to me. I'd OD, or drink myself to death, or go looking for something else that would kill me the same way I hoped the Beast would.”_ _

__“Don't say that.” Margo had known that he hadn't been in the best headspace following Mike, but to hear that he'd been so close to the edge slices at her armor from a new angle._ _

__“It's true. I'm brave enough to tell you that it's true.” Margo rounds the couch, unsure if she wants to smack him or hug him._ _

__“I didn't plan to come over here and cry.” She murmurs into his chest as he intercepts her path and folds her into his embrace. It's the same kind of hug he gave her on the day she'd stopped him and Quentin from going through the clock. His lips brush against her forehead as his hand cradles the back of her skull. Things hadn't been the same since the evening when the three of them had returned to Whitespire together. The last time she can remember the two of them being on the same page was when they'd agreed to kill the Monster so Quentin wouldn't be trapped at Blackspire. If they had just let him go, maybe it would have saved them._ _

__“I wish we'd never met him.” She murmurs without realizing she'd vocalized the words aloud._ _

__“Don't.” The warning could mean a lot of things. Don't talk about Quentin like that, or don't bring him up at all. She's not sure what he wants, but the keg has been tapped, and all the feelings that have been brewing in her soul come gushing out._ _

__“Sometimes, I feel like he ruined us, El.” It had been her and Eliot against the world, and then Quentin had cracked Eliot's guarded heart wide open. He'd gotten to their soft underbellies before they'd been given nothing more than a chance to blink._ _

___“Don't.”_ There's a little more emphasis on the word this time. It has an indecipherable edge that Margo can't read without seeing his face. Underneath the gentle press of her hands, his pulse is starting to race. _ _

__“El...” His face teeters on the edge of soul-shattering devastation._ _

__“Don't force me to pick.” Their eyes meet, holding until Eliot blinks first, then he's tilting his head away from her hands._ _

__“Honey...” Margo ends up saying the word to his back because Eliot is walking around the couch so he can throw himself down amongst the pillows. “Honey, Q picked Alice. I know he broke your heart, but you can't keep clinging to this fantasy that he's going to show up one day.” Margo follows him and perches on the edge of the coffee table. The aerating glasses of wine bracket her hips._ _

__“I won't fuck this up again.” Eliot murmurs down at his hands, the fingers of which lay laced together in his lap. “I already fucked up once.” Margo hesitates, silently debating how hard she can push without making Eliot fold back into himself._ _

__“What did you fuck up, Baby?”_ _

__“Us, me and Q. I ruined it. I was so fucking scared that I wrecked any chance we had of being a couple; I wouldn't even let us try.” Margo reaches for his face and gently rubs her thumbs at the corners of his eyes. The lenses steam, and Margo slides them free so she can deposit them on the table._ _

__“When was all this?” She prods._ _

__“After the time key, before I sent him off on the Muntjac with Benedict. We _remembered_ , I don't know how, but we both remember pieces of that life we had together. The one where we died in Fillory. We had the most beautiful life.” Eliot's fingers start rubbing near frantic circles around the edges of the watch face. "I'm not saying there weren't moments when it was messy, especially before Ari died, but we made it work. We were happy, so fucking happy, and Q wanted to have that again in this lifetime. I said no because I thought I wouldn't be enough. I didn't think we could be the same as we'd been in Fillory. It seemed too hard, especially in the middle of the quest.”_ _

__“Well, shit.” Eliot chokes out a weak self-deprecating laugh._ _

__“I didn't let myself think about it until I got trapped in my mind. I didn't see how deeply my rejection of us had hurt Q until I had to relive the memory.”_ _

__“You broke his heart.” Eliot nods. Tears track down the angles of cheeks, and Margo reaches to cup his face. His muscles had tightened as he continued to talk, Margo can feel the tremors starting to build. She needs to snap him out of it. “You're not trapped, Sweetie. What you went through is over.” Eliot's gaze flits up, and he sniffs quietly, then the tension runs back out of him._ _

__“I ruin things, Margo. Everyone I care about ends up disappointed.”_ _

__“I'm not disappointed.” He rears back from her and chuckles out a harsh disbelieving bark of laughter._ _

__“Less than ten minutes ago, you summed up my pedestrian existence as boring, sad, small potatoes bullshit.” Having her words thrown into her face stings._ _

__“I was trying to motivate you.”_ _

__“Into doing what? Into going back to Fillory? Right, because returning to the place where I failed in every conceivable aspect is _guaranteed_ to make me feel better. Top-notch idea, Margo.” The emotional roller coaster they are riding around in loops is making Margo nauseous. _ _

__“What do you want me to say, Eliot?”_ _

__“I'd like for you to be happy for me and proud of the progress I've made. I needed the clean slate, Margo, it's the only thing that saved me. I'd love for you to acknowledge that I experienced something truly horrible and that it changed me.” Eliot stops to take a breath, to give the permanence of that statement a moment to settle between them. “People change! Quentin changed. You changed. You've told me what happened in the desert. I don't know how to relate to that; then there's Josh. The last thing that I wanted was to be the hanger-on who ruins their friend's relationship.” He doesn't say best friend; he might even be talking about Quentin and Alice. Margo's mind spins._ _

__“ _Best_ friend's relationship.” She corrects. _ _

__“Are we?” Eliot challenges. Margo swallows._ _

__“Don't be stupid.” She manages to make her inflection haughty._ _

__“You're the one suggesting I blow up my life on a whim. Again.” Margo huffs but doesn't try to dispute him. “Hey,” His tone changes, now quieter and almost whispered like he's about to tell her a secret. “News flash, Bambi... I like this life.” He says it with such sincerity, with an ease of conviction, that the truth of it finally sets in. This is the Eliot she's stuck with – for better or for worse. She needs to accept that, post-haste._ _

__“Fiiiineee!” She drags out over a long-winded sigh. “Don't get your panties in a twist. It was just a suggestion. Jesus. For the record, I think you should reconsider contacts. I still don't like these.” She picks up the frames and wipes the lenses with a stray cloth before sliding them back on his face. Her hand closes delicately around the stem of one of the glasses of Malbec. “I take it this isn't meant for me, is it?”_ _

__“I'm afraid not.” Eliot takes the glass from her and sets it on the end table._ _

__“For Quentin?” Eliot nods. “What about Alice? How does she feel about things?”_ _

__“She kinda set it all in motion, honestly. Look, it's complicated, Margo. Q and I started over, sans Alice. It's only been a couple of weeks, so we're still working out our boundaries. He and Alice aren't together, no one is cheating. Bury the hatchet with him, for my sake, because I'm not fucking this up again. If you need to go to Fillory to play conquering hero until you've given up your grudge, then by all means, not that you need my permission.”_ _

__“What about Fen? I kinda let her depose me to save your sorry ass. She grieved deeply for you before Q let us know you were alive. One day I found her buried under a mountain of your clothes.”_ _

__“A last lay?” Eliot smiles a little as he drags the blanket off the back of the couch. His body shivers as he tucks his legs up on the cushions and makes sure his feet are covered. The new position leaves him turned sideways on the couch. “I was a terrible husband to her.” He murmurs. “Tell her I love her, that I want her to find somebody that won't treat her like garbage. If I were you, I'd keep her as your second king. It might make things smoother with the Fillorians. All the best things I did as a royal were her ideas.”_ _

__“You didn't treat her like that.”_ _

__“Margo, believe me when I say I know the difference between being a good and horrible husband.” Margo's vision swims a little, and she reaches down to slip off her heels before climbing onto the opposite end of the couch. She stretches her legs out and nudges her toes at his knee until Eliot huffs and fluffs the blanket out enough to cover her feet._ _

__“So, the two of you spent... years, slumming it as a domestic couple in the Fillorian backwoods.” Eliot hums._ _

__“Decades. We had a kid – Theodore Rupert Coldwater-Waugh. When I died, some of the grandkids were Coldwater-Waughs. In some alternate timeline, there could be a whole dynasty by now.” Margo doesn't know how to begin unpacking this new bombshell. When she goes home, it's something she's definitely giving some attention If that life had been real, Eliot and Quentin deserve to know._ _

__“That name is horrifying long and unnecessarily pretentious. Am I right in guessing that Eliot Waugh, the notorious flirt and Brakebills heartbreaker, has been a secret monogamist all along? And that now he plans to slum it longterm with his boyfriend in Boston's South End?”_ _

__“Eliot Waugh is a secret monogamist,” Eliot confirms. “And this place is fantastic! We're not slumming shit; this neighborhood is expensive!” He does have a lovely apartment. Margo's never admitted it because recognizing as much would have been an admission of the permanent changes to Eliot she hadn't been ready to embrace._ _

__“I liked it better when it was empty.” Eliot's not shivering anymore. “If it wasn't for magic, neither of you could afford to live here.” Margo reminds him._ _

__“Well, hopefully, magic doesn't get fucked over again for a good long while. Next time it breaks, none of us are helping. The world can go find new punching bags.” Margo laughs; for the first time in a long time, it feels cathartic. She's about to lean forward to squeeze his knee when there's a knock on the door. It's just like Quentin to have shitty timing; she and Eliot had just started to make some actual progress. Eliot reaches for the door with his telekinesis, and Quentin steps halfway inside, sees her, and freezes._ _

__“Uh, hey, Margo.”_ _

__“Don't get your titties in a twist, Coldwater. I'm leaving.” Margo swings her legs to the floor. Quentin glances between her, and Eliot, still frozen to his spot._ _

__“Q.” Eliot beckons him in with an emphatic wave and scoots closer to the couch back, so Quentin has room to sit beside him. Quentin finally moves like there a magnetic pull he's powerless to ignore. His hand finds its way into Eliot's hair as soon as he's close enough and gently scraps the mass of loose curls back. Eliot leans into it like a cat, letting out a content noise that might be a purr if he were one._ _

__“All good?” Eliot's eyes are still irritated and puffy_ _

__“Margo and Josh are planning to go back to Fillory.”_ _

__“Are we going with them?” Eliot preens as Quentin continues playing with his hair. The smaller man finally sits, squishing Eliot firmly into the cushions in the process. Once they're settled, Eliot tucks his head against Quentin's shoulder. They fit together like laser-cut building blocks. There's so much sap running off of them that Margo could almost gag on it._ _

__“Absolutely not!” Quentin's fingers tip Eliot's chin, then settle more firmly along the side of his face._ _

__“Are you sure?” The two of them have a silent conversation spoken between their eyes and the microexpressions of their faces. Then their foreheads touch, and they just sit breathing the same air. They don't kiss; they don't talk. Finally, Eliot sighs in relief and lets his eyes slide closed as he leans more heavily into Quentin's hand, the thumb of which is rubbing gentle circles below his ear. Margo feels like an intruder and leans down to find her heels._ _

__“Sorry, Margo.” It's Quentin who breaks their silence. Margo forces her gaze up from her feet to see that Eliot has melted back into Quentin's shoulder. “We're both seeing professionals, and I don't think it's wise for either of us to stop right now.” It feels like an excuse, but Margo has heard more than her share about Patrick. That Eliot has committed to a shrink after everything life has thrown at him is something to be celebrated._ _

__“Josh and I can handle it.” Going home without them will be an adjustment, but Eliot's alive. He's healing, and Margo has to trust that he knows what he needs better than she does. It's not like they'll be separated forever. They have an established portal between Earth and Fillory. “You two can come to visit once the dust settles.” She promises them as she makes a strategic retreat toward the door. Eventually, she'll get brave enough to give Quentin the shovel talk, but for now, she's brave enough to pick her battles._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos, and positive feedback are welcome! Feel free to point out errors if you see them. I usually catch at least 1 or 2 even after an edit.


End file.
